Mobile shoppers in Taiwan on rise: Yahoo survey (update)

Taipei, Sept. 15 (CNA) Nearly one of every two Taiwanese consumers have purchased products via mobile websites or apps thanks to the convenience of mobile shopping, according to a survey released Monday by Yahoo Inc.'s Taiwan branch.

The results of the 2014 Yahoo Taiwan e-commerce survey show that 44.6 percent of the respondents have shopped via mobile browsers or smartphone apps, an increase from 34.2 percent recorded in a similar survey carried out last year.

In terms of shopping frequency, 24.8 percent of the respondents said they shop using smartphones about once a month, with another 45.5 percent saying they do mobile shopping more than once per month.

Further, some 48.2 percent of the respondents aged 30-39 said they used to shop on smartphones, the highest among all age groups, while 35.3 percent of those aged over 50 said they do not limit how much they spend on mobile shopping, the survey said.

The survey was based on 4,470 valid samples collected between June 23 and July 18 via online questionnaire. It had a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of plus or minus 1.47 percent.

Jacky Wang, head of Yahoo Taiwan's e-commerce group, told a press briefing that with more personalized designs of mobile apps and mobile shopping sites, consumers now have easier access to what they want to buy via their smartphones.

He revealed that roughly 38 percent of Yahoo Taiwan's e-commerce revenue has come from mobile users so far this year, up from about 20 percent in the same period of last year.

In the meantime, the number of mobile visitors to Yahoo Taiwan's e-commerce site has jumped by 160 percent since the portal's e-commerce smartphone app was launched in March this year, while the number of its e-commerce transactions has increased by 62 percent, Wang said.